Maui - First Photo Post

I'm very glad you're willing to engage like this. However, I'm about to jump a plane to run off to Corfu for two weeks (hope to come back with some nice photos!), so I have to be VERY brief. It's not disinterest.

javyNJ wrote:

Boxerman, again, thanks for taking the time to craft a well written response. Please don't think that I'm being defensive, combative or argumentative. I'm sincerely coming from a place of little knowledge and wanting to learn. I didn't mean to put you on the spot, but I'm hungry to learn and you're the sucker who happened to engage

I believe I can see that you want to engage genuinely and I'm not feeling bad being put on the spot. "So, how do you see things," seems a perfectly sensible thing to ask.

... Also, please don't refrain from the technical comments. It may not make these captures any better but it's certainly helpful for future endeavors. The only way to change any shortcoming is to understand and recognize them so as not to repeat them. If you have anything to add beyond whats already been said (or if you'd like to emphasize a point thats been made) please do so. It may bruise my ego now, but what doesn't kill us... Ultimately, if I were looking for an ego stroke I would just send these all to my mom for her feedback

I would if I had time, but, honestly, I don't see a lot of big technical issues, so the heart of my comments is on the basic nature of the photos.

I'm gonna take a stab at doing exactly what I asked of you for one of my own photos, because like you said, it is a good exercise to try and explain...

Great!

#2 (since I haven't seen any comments on it except for one). I sat watching that sunset for a while trying to find the interesting part of it. On its own it was beautiful, but not noteworthy. As you said, "I've seen this before". Then they turned the lights on and I saw this interesting juxtaposition of the beautiful natural light and the beautiful (to me) man made lamps.

This is a very common trope. Evening shots are almost always nice with lights in them, and vice versa. Get the city just at the edge of evening, and you get both city lights and (possibly) a great sky. So, I see this as familiar and not a new idea. Then it comes down to, is this an exceptional execution of a familiar idea? I didn't see it.

The idea that both lights, despite different origins, signaled the same thing, the ending of the day.

Yes. But we see it every day (at least I do)! What's the exceptional aspect of it?

I also loved the ray of light streaming through the clouds. I saw this as nature's last effort to hold onto the day.

I forget what these rays are called (ah, crespucular rays!), but they are a great focus for picture taking. But, in that genre, this did not seem outstanding.

Trying to get the last word if you will. Speaking to Bob G's comment about the horizon being too low, I think if I remember correctly there as something or someone in the water that I didn't want in the shot, and at the time I wasn't confident in my ability to remove it in post.

We all have to work around such things. I hardly ever count on removing things in post, either.

#7 - There were 2 things I liked about this shot. First, the idea of observing the observatory had some ironic significance in my head. The second thing was the surreal quality of this; the clouds as a pseudo-ground for the sun to set on, the different textures of the clouds at this particular moment. I feel like this is something that most people won't ever have the opportunity to see and it really captured the grandness of the moment.

You may be right here in terms of many people's reactions. Perhaps I'm spoiled by seeing too many of these (and lucky to have gone to see many of them). But, I don't think the irony is communicable in such a shot. I would definitely think about a different framing. The clouds are there, but not enough of an "issue" to draw me in.

It's interesting to realize that regardless of what I felt at the moment, most aren't connecting in the way I did. I guess ultimately the goal is to close the gap in that discrepancy.

This is, I would say, a great struggle. If you want to communicate something and it just doesn't come through, that's really good information. It's a funny channel of communication, and you just can't expect all of your feelings to "fit" the channel." Sometimes you can get emotions and such through; sometimes, equally good, a picture can be "evocative," and engender various emotions and ideas, not the one you felt. I've enjoyed evocative pictures when I've manage them. One was a picture of a new bike chained to a fence in front of an old European fresco of Jesus. Lots of possible meanings, and I heard a few. I called it, partly to provoke, Jesus' Bicycle. Fun to chat about.

t take some photos for myself, and some I hope to please others. Getting really good at pleasing yourself in particular, observable ways is a great way to please others. Developing a style others can explore with you. If you want to please others (I do a good deal of the time; and I also want to learn how others see things to see if I want to pick that up--as you are doing here!), then you should just learn about this process.

Some say (here, too) you should JUST please yourself. I do not believe that. At least, that's not my mode of pursuing photography. It's as bad as JUST pleasing others--lack of integrity, or lack of empathy.

Sorry for the philosophies. But, that's part of my participation in photography.

Thanks again to Boxerman and everyone else who took the time to comment.